


Project Dianceht

by The_Exile



Category: Nier Gestalt | Nier
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Tragedy, Backstory, Character Death, Gen, Hope, Late Game, Nier Automata references, Sharing a Body, Spoilers, Worldbuilding, digital consciousness upload
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-21 15:48:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18705424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Exile/pseuds/The_Exile
Summary: Kalil and P-33 manage to survive by fusing together. This function is part of a project designed as a backup to the Gestalt Project, later abandoned because of a few glitches. Now it is reactivating all around the world. This anomaly attracts the attention of Devola and Popola, who have also only just survived. While trailing the renegade cyborg across the mountains, they discover something even more alarming - they're finally receiving signals from other Twin android pairs!





	Project Dianceht

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ctytn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ctytn/gifts).



**Emergency restart initialised.**

 

**5...**

**4...**

**3...**

**2...**

**1...**

 

**Loading BIOS.**

 

**ERROR 0: BIOS failed to load.**

**Could not load program. Catastrophic kernel malfunction detected.**

 

**Scanning for structural damage...**

 

**Significant structural damage detected in all areas. Sensors down. Gyromotors down. Industrial unit down. Security systems down. Armour breached.**

 

**Searching log...**

 

**Log was corrupted but partially recovered. Major security breach alert was recorded. Unit came under attack. Weapons systems came online but were restricted by defense protocol: protect...**

 

*** FURTHER RECORDS CORRUPTED ***

 

**Activating repair mode...**

 

**Unit irrecoverable. Suggest abandoning and restoring from backup.**

 

**ERROR: Unit disconnected from data memory server. Log shows that all machines of this model were removed from data memory altogether after case of viral infection revealed security weakness. Security protocol suggests erasing data and self-destructing physical unit in order to remove risk of...**

 

**\+ NO +**

 

**ERROR: Command routines not recognised. Source unknown. Suggest security breach. Preparing to self-destruct...**

 

**\+ NO NO NO I WILL NOT DIE NO +**

 

* * *

 

 

Two figures, nigh indistinguishable from each other, floated above the jagged, inhospitable mountain peak and the abandoned factory carved crudely into its face, sheer as a wound. A cold wind howled but neither the biting temperatures nor the force of the gale seemed to affect either of the watchers. To any normal human looking through a powerful telescope (scant few of those left, though - normal humans), say from the Eyrie, they would only have seen a pair of beautiful female redhead twins in long red dresses with billowing black sleeves. Some might have noticed the difference in hairstyle, or that they were both heavily wounded, or that the substance coming from the wounds wasn't blood. Bare, frayed wires trailed from ruptured synth-skin that oozed lubrication fluid and the nano-plastic secreted by their repair systems. Burn marks covered one half of the face of the first twin, scorched in patterns and colours that didn't match any kind of natural flames. The second was missing a hand. They could both move, though, and hover, watch and record, compare their findings to records that, despite the efforts of their assailants, were still intact.

 

"Should we not do something?" asked the second twin of the first, "This is a very unusual circumstance. Almost as much so as...

 

"As the event that nearly wiped us both out," the first growled, wincing from the pain. She didn't even have pain receptors, damn it, or at least not ones that she couldn't turn off. That last attack, the energy used by that damn book, it had hurt on a fundamental level, had corrupted data, had made the difference between reality and what was supposed to be, too much for her processors to handle. Her face was less likely to repair than her sister's hand was of reforming, even if they settled in the factory to scavenge spare parts, "And we're allowed to act in exceptional circumstances, maybe even compelled. But the problem is, this is the kind of 'unusual' where we have no idea what's really happening or what effects our interference will have or even if we can do anything about it at all."

 

"It's just an old construction unit still active that we thought were all decommissioned..."

 

"Because it was the highest priority order to scrap them all, after a security emergency. There wouldn't just be one left."

 

"Communications with the other surveillance units are scrappy at best, we don't know the whole situation..."

 

"That may be so but we really don't have an explanation for why that thing's still active. It can't back itself up, its probably under orders to self-destruct if it was abandoned..."

 

"Popola! There's a Gestalt down there!"

 

"What? I thought the place was cleared out. Did another pocket survive somewhere and move back in? If so, we might have a chance..."

 

"Be careful, don't go down there yet. Something's not right. There's something very unusual about that Gestalt."

 

"Never mind the Gestalt, the machine's doing something odd again. It's overridden its own security systems to run... something..."

 

"Doesn't want to self-destruct after escaping for so long, huh? Can't blame it."

 

"No, it's not just an ordinary self-destruct cancellation. It's getting power from somewhere..."

 

"Whatever it is, the Gestalt's reacting to it weirdly, those energy signals are through the roof, and for such a little thing..."

 

"Holy... is that what its trying to do? I thought that function was never put into a live model!"

 

"What are you talking about? Are you saying we should go down there?"

 

Popola shook her head, "Keep observing for now, but we intervene immediately if anyone else tries to interfere! There's no further necessity to keep any of the Replicants alive."

 

Devola shook her head and frowned. That last order was possibly the worst thing they could possibly have heard. It could only have been issued them had their mission been deemed an irretrievable failure. Otherwise, they'd be told to go back and try again straight away. Still, it freed them up to do... whatever the hell her sister was up to now.

 

Still taking care to keep out of sight, they hovered in closer.

 

* * *

 

 

**\+ I WILL NOT! NO! I MADE A PROMISE. +**

 

That's right, Beepy, you can't go away forever, because you promised you wouldn't. Not like my mum - she broke the promise. She said she had to, so I don't mind but... you're a big, strong machine, so...

 

**WARNING: Unauthorised user tampering with device. This security violation is punishable by...**

**Overriding usage restrictions. Administrator level access given to user recognised as * FILE CORRUPTED ***

 

**Entering username 'KALIL'. User 'KALIL' now has full administrative access.**

**WARNING: This is not a permitted automatic function of this unit model. Additionally, this username was not found on staff database of * FILE CORRUPTED ***

 

**\+ WE PROMISED WE WOULD GO AWAY TOGETHER AND SEE THE WORLD. +**

 

That's right, Beepy, you remember! And now we can see the sky, through that big hole in the roof. We made it. We're out.

 

**Accessing Project DIANCEHT.**

**ERROR: this unit is not authorised to access records of top secret project DIANCEHT. Unexpected data will be purged. This unit will now be...**

**Overridden.**

**Accessing project DIANCEHT.**

 

Don't worry. I can fix you up. We can run away. We'll be far away from the nasty guy.

 

**\+ FRIENDS. WE WILL BE FRIENDS FOREVER +**

 

* * *

 

The suddenly ascending pillar of golden light, tiny sparks of Gestalt data cascading off in every direction like a massive firework powerful enough to blow the top off the mountain, surprised both of them. Devola had never heard of this function of what should be a perfectly ordinary industrial robot in her millennia of existence. Popola at least knew of it, although most of the references to it in her data banks had been purged. She wasn't supposed to know about it, she was quite aware. Her AI's personality was unusually quirky like that. She hoarded information, had secret backups everywhere. It was a mutation of her strong survival instinct, placed there to protect valuable machines. She'd long since learned that other machines on the Project could be threats to her survival, above and beyond necessary sacrifices. After all, they could malfunction and give out unauthorised orders such as attacking other androids or hoarding information they shouldn't have. It was only common sense to be careful.

 

As far as she knew, this Project shouldn't still exist. It had been one possible solution to the problem before Project Gestalt had been decided upon. There'd been... issues... with allowing machines to develop thought processes of human-level complexity, even temporarily, even overwriting their own will. A purpose built shell was just easier all round.

 

It had to be a switch that got tripped, she thought to herself. Something that was never fully taken out - after all, it was attached to nothing and the trigger for it activating wasn't even possible any more. Or maybe the parts for the Project had been manufactured in this facility, a batch had been overlooked, accidentally installed... Lots of things like that went wrong in an abandoned factory, with Gestalts losing their minds and trying to perform meaningless activities that resembled their past lives.

 

It still couldn't possibly have been activated, though. There was no mechanism to link it to...

 

The ground rumbled. Something emerged from the crater, a gigantic mechanical dome-shaped head with wide, round eyes that now shone with a brilliant golden life. Too alive. Rippling like flames...

* * *

 

 

**Merge complete. No errors detected.**

**Unit now fast-charging.**

**Activating repair mode.**

 

“Where do you want to go next, then?”

 

**\+ YOU DECIDE +**

 

“Um, I don’t know my way around, to be honest. My mum always took me places. Don’t you have a map inside you or something?”

 

**\+ NAVIGATION SYSTEM DOWN. NO SIGNAL. UPDATES REQUIRED. +**

 

“Well, let’s just go anywhere! Pick somewhere to go for me! We need to be far away from here, so we won’t be found by the bad guy…”

 

**\+ LOADING RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR. PLEASE SET PARAMETERS. +**

 

“Look, just head towards the sea, okay? Cool adventures are always beyond the sea. Everyone knows that.”

* * *

 

 

Despite their enthusiasm, they were making slow progress through the mountain. Through their newfound link that had all the strength, beyond anything either of them had experienced before (P-33 being new to the idea of emotional bonds altogether), of two souls sharing one vessel, he sensed the child's disappointment and frustration, as well as his lingering confusion at this whole situation that P-33 knew full well, and the creeping fear that the one who almost destroyed them both was about to come back.

 

P-33 was unconvinced that he had ever had a 'soul', not that he really understood the concept, which apparently confused even humans. However, the human child was adamant that he had a 'soul', was a 'person', and the human child knew better than he did. Perhaps a 'soul' was just a type of fundamental code running on his data banks, or if it wasn't, the two were similar enough that it would suffice as a replacement.

 

Kalil, by contrast, appeared to him to be nothing but 'soul', the purest example of a 'person', if the child's description was accurate. As much as he was panicking about being in a new body, one that was nothing like his own and that he wasn't used to operating, P-33 had never remembered the child having a body. His appearance reminded P-33 of glitchy code, written on the face of the outside world in garbled yellow text of a language neither of them knew. He had tried to explain to the child that Kalil had no body but this just made him more confused and upset. P-33 did not like seeing the child in any kind of distress. It railed against him in the same way that trying to go against his core commands did (before something inside him suddenly prompted him to ignore them all, he meant). Now that they were one and the same, the sympathetic conflicts in his own data sent error messages flooding into his processor whenever the child was too stressed, so it was in the interests of simple survival to calm him down, something that seemed a lot more important to him suddenly.

 

He was not sure, however, what he was supposed to do about Kalil's absolute insistence that he stop cannibalising other machines for parts.

 

 

"It's creepy," insisted Kalil, that voice now constantly coming out of his own speakers, resonating inside his audial receptors, appearing as text after the log of his own speech and thoughts.

 

**\+ For a human, yes. It is normal for a machine. +**

 

"But these were your friends!"

 

**\+ Friends? Negative. No emotional connection to these machines exists. +**

 

"B... but you lived and worked with them for ages!"

 

P-33 knew that 'ages' was supposed to be a vague term for a length of time considered to be strenuously long for a human attention span. However, he also knew that Kalil's attention span and sense of time were both flaky, even compared to the average for a small child. Humans had authority over machines. If a human said that P-33 had been with these particular machines that he didn't even remember the faces of for 'ages', then this was correct. However, this didn't really mean much, especially as the factory reports showed that the malfunctioning humans, the ones without bodies, could live longer than a properly maintained robot.

 

**\+ These machines will never mean more to me than Kalil does. I am heavily damaged and have lost parts. I require parts from other machines to fully repair myself and to upgrade into forms that I will need for the journey ahead. These are both things I need to protect Kalil and fulfil his goal.+**

 

"Are you gonna start sacrificing yourself for me?" he asked, manipulating their frame to stare awkwardly at the ground, "My mom used to talk about doing that a lot. That was just before she went away and never came back. When the other nasty people got her."

 

**\+ Sacrificing myself is illogical. It will not fulfil your goal. +**

 

"Even if it's a real big emergency?"

 

P-33 paused, **\+ Maybe if it was a scenario where it was somehow necessary for your continued existence. +**

 

"My mom said that too. But then it was a real emergency."

 

 **\+ I am a 'big, strong robot',+** he reminded the bo **y, + And we share a body, so my destruction will almost certainly lead to yours, unless something causes us to separate again. +**

 

"It's weird being like this but I don't think I want it to end."

 

**\+ Excellent. We currently cannot keep ourselves alive separately from each other. +**

 

The child went silent at this. P-33 continued picking through the pile of mangled robotic chassis and limbs, picking out intact upgrade chips and working parts that were compatible with his frame. He would need to think outside the parameters of his previous function in the factory. He was already built to be strong and durable, able to endure drops, fires and caustic chemical spills. He had several limbs for climbing onto scaffolding while holding several crates at once. While he’d needed to find parts to fix it, he did have a hover pack, just in case. He’d decided to upgrade it a little with the hover packs of other, similar machines. Flying seemed the most efficient means of travel over the sea. Few of the hostile things he’d detected were airborne. After some deliberation, he added a few extra limbs and some more weapons systems. He managed to find a map of the local area on one of the few data terminals that hadn’t been destroyed. It was out of data and didn’t range very far away from the factory but it was a start. Kalil had informed P-33 that he was looking away while this happened. The machine was not sure how this conceptually worked but he nodded his agreement, his first attempt at real human body language.

* * *

 

Twenty four hours in, the machine was still stable in its integration with the Gestalt now inhabiting it. Curiously, both the original AI and the Gestalt's personality both existed without overwriting each other or even fighting each other for control of the machine all that much - there was the occasional attempt to go in two opposite directions at once but these seemed accidental. Both of the machine's personalities were learning how to be in a totally new situation: the AI was now pretty much self-aware and had free will, the Gestalt finally had a body, albeit not a whole one to themselves, and not one suited to them. It was better than nothing, Devola mused, and much better than something so faulty that it rejected them to the point of attacking them on sight.

 

Still, it couldn't be trusted. There had to be a reason the project was cancelled. Something other than lack of necessity. Foolish though they had been in trusting the Replicants to work, they couldn't have had no backup plan whatsoever for a project that was supposed to be critical to all of humanity.

 

"There have always been flaws with the older-type machines, though. It could be that they were just not considered compatible enough in nature to a human," guessed Popola.

 

Devola considered this. She watched the machine continue to hover across the ocean, using a crudely assembled rig of randomly scavenged parts to keep it in the air. To a human, such a thing would be nightmarish, she was fairly sure. Although, the lengths to which a threatened human would go to survive...

 

"Makes you wonder why they never tried using us as hosts, though," mused Popola, "Not that I'd want them to - we're our own people - but that doesn't seem like the sort of thing they..."

 

Devola shushed her suddenly, "I'm getting a transmission."

 

"What? From where?"

 

"The desert. There's... there's another pair of us out there!"

 

"How? I thought we were all gone except us two!"

 

"They're heavily damaged but still functional and capable of communication. It's slow going but they're trying to regroup. There's been trouble where they are, too."

 

The redhead android snapped her finger and a small holo-window appeared, its footage rather grainy with white noise breaking up the audio but still coherent enough to tell that the faces and voices on the other end would be identical to their own, had they been in the exact same condition. If anything, the other two looked worse than them. The other Popola was limping, being propped up by the other Devola, who also walked slowly but with the dogged determination to protect each other and the mission that all such twin units were programmed with.

 

They turned away from the machine who was now hovering rather aimlessly in circles, apparently confused as to where it was supposed to be going, a matter which it debated to the other mind inside its shell who replied in the distorted, high pitched voice of a Gestalt who had been too young for the process at the time.

 

* * *

 

P-33 circled the skies above the ocean, scanning the vicinity for any interesting landmarks that would make a suitable next port of call, like an eagle searching for its prey.

 

Admittedly, there were several problems with that analogy. For one, P-33 wasn't sure what the precise definition of an 'interesting landmark'. After conferring with Kalil for a while, he decided to scan for unusually large structures, then for signs of other AI like himself, then for any humans in the area. So far he'd not found humans but he had found some faint, distant signals of clearly malfunctioning AI somewhere beyond the ocean, next to a tall communications tower giving off another strong signal. Communications wasn't a subject he knew about; he'd always been a construction robot with very little administrative access to the factory that would involve interactions with a higher authority elsewhere. Added to that, he'd been shut off from all outside communications following the security emergency he still couldn't access the details of, not long after he was first switched on. Some of his new parts were from the factory control systems but they weren't well integrated enough for him to get any information off them. Mostly he just needed the faster processors and more memory to run all the other things he'd strapped to himself. Part of that had meant wiping the original contents.

 

The second problem was that he had no idea what a bird was.

 

Kalil knew about birds and had tried to explain them. He remembered seeing them 'before everything went weird and the white stuff started covering everything' (P-33 again wondered how old Kalil actually was). After that, he just stopped seeing them. They were avian creatures, mostly smaller and a lot more graceful and majestic than P-33. Now that he'd used so many parts that barely fit together, he was rattling around a lot, making a lot of noise, burning more fuel than he really ought to and still occasionally losing a part that wasn't bolted on tight enough. He certainly wasn't soaring effortlessly on the wind currents like a regal bird of prey.

 

The child reassured him that he was still handsome in his own way, 'like a really cool-looking fighter jet or something', and that he was probably more dangerous than a hawk in a fight because he was bigger and had all those guns attached to him. Kalil still appeared to be convinced that P-33 had emotions, even though there was no way that something as sophisticated as actual emotions, not just the understanding of expected reactions in conversation, could be programmed into any robot.

 

**\+ If I seem to be manifesting emotions, it is almost certainly your own feelings that you are looking at. +**

 

Kalil took some time to process this explanation, "So, are we gonna start getting each other mixed up? Am I gonna think that I'm you?"

 

**\+ I will endeavor to make sure that this is not the case. It sounds as if the experience would be draining for us both. It would confuse my logic circuits and may psychologically affect you badly. +**

 

"Huh, yeah, it does sound confusing. More confusing than being in this body is anyway, I mean," he replied, "Hey, I know a song about birds. Do you want to hear it? It's a little sad because its about how there aren't any birds any more, but I still think its pretty."

 

**\+ Please do. If anything, I want to hear how music sounds again. I'll activate the speakers so you can sing out loud. +**

 

As best he could, P-33 screened his deeper thoughts, of how music made him seem to understand what it meant to be human a little more, of how he was attempting to make his own. That kind of talk from a robot sounded insane.

 

* * *

 

"So its starting here, too," whispered the other Devola. Her voice was gradually fading. Twin androids weren't supposed to run out of power - they could recycle virtually anything into energy, or just use their vast supply of solar energy - but this one's power conversion systems had been damaged in the fight that had caused her other injuries. Rogue machines, the first Devola recognised from the weapons systems that had to have been used to make those marks. There'd been unfamiliar energy surges too, suggesting that maybe the Gestalts had been involved. Unusually for these cases, there had been hacking attempts and signs of a viral infection that had been cleared up now. They'd need to scan her again when they met up, just in case.

 

It was hard going, getting through the desert. The Gestalts here had always been a tougher breed and whatever was happening right now between Nier and the Shadowlord had whipped up every surviving Gestalt into a frenzy. Normally there was nothing living out there that could truly threaten the Twins working together but they were still unacceptably weak from their attempt to stop the Shadowlord’s insane counterpart ascending the Tower.

 

Maybe they would have a chance to solve another problem before it grew out of hand, at least. Assuming their programming didn’t suddenly demand they just sit there monitoring it, taking notes about it while pretending to be human, drinking far too much beer that wasn’t any better for a mechanical brain than it was for a human’s.

 

“What exactly is starting? What happened here?” she demanded, “You can’t mean the Gestalt situation, that’s been going on for years...”

 

“The machines are awakening.”

 

“They’ve been malfunctioning since they were abandoned, too. The Gestalts are affecting their databases badly...”

 

“But they shouldn’t interfacing with the Gestalts even this much. Something’s been activated that wasn’t supposed to.”

 

“You’ve seen that too? It’s not just this factory? But it was discontinued and stored here...”

 

“It wasn’t stored here, or back where we just were. It’s supposed to be under the heaviest security codes back at the base. Except now its spread through every factory and I can’t even find out which channel...”

 

Popola flashed up on the display, “I told you, we can’t discuss this over the comms. We don’t know it can’t intercept us, too. Can we talk face to face?”

 

“I’m on my way. Please just hold out a little longer...”

 

* * *

 

"So you've decided you're gonna go towards the other machines? Are you gonna look for your friends?"

 

P-33 paused. He was about to explain yet again that he had no way of actually checking that these machines were even models that would normally be in the same network as him, or complete strangers, and either way, he certainly had no emotional connection to the AIs he had never seen in his life.

 

Then he remembered that it made even less sense for him to have acquired an emotional bond with a human child. The factory was meant to be entirely automated, with an inspector coming round annually. Unaccompanied minors certainly weren't allowed on the premises. If anything, he was supposed to have escorted them off site. However, it had been an exceptional case, as the child was in danger and appeared to be abandoned. Protecting a human child was one of the core priorities coded into all of the machines, even before they were given their function.

 

Besides, by that point, even his rather rigid programming had managed to accept that the factory wasn't in the state it normally was, certainly not intact enough for the production line to keep running.

 

"I told you, I wasn't alone," complained Kalil, "My mum was with me. But then she wasn't. The bad machines were all around us and they were going to hurt me, so she said she'd stay behind to protect me and that I had to run real fast. That was the last I saw of her. We'd been running for days. She'd promised we would get to safety together, that she'd never stop protecting me."

 

 **\+ I apologise for your loss. +** he replied automatically. Then, after a moment of thought, **\+ I cannot absolutely guarantee I will remain functioning but I will protect you with everything I have. +**

 

"Well, of course you will, we're one and the same now," a strange, warm light seemed to fill his circuitry, causing the multiple warnings that seawater was spraying upwards into his jets had stopped blaring messages into his skull for once.

 

"Still," he continued, "It's always easier with friends, so you shouldn't just throw away a chance to see your friends, just because you haven't met in a while. I had a lot of friends back in the village, you know, before the bad people started coming. My mum took all the kids in the middle of the night and stole into the mountains with them. It wasn't just me, at first. But it's real hard to move quickly and quietly when you've got to take so many kids with you, and we're all tired and hungry, and there are these things following us. The boars used to stay away from people, you know..."

 

 **\+ I promise that I shall try to make contact with the other machines, +** said P-33 suddenly, **\+ But I can't guarantee they will want to talk to me. +**

 

"Because you were cut off, right? But you should give it a try anyway. After all, you said you don't always act like a machine is supposed to."

 

**\+ You think that there may be others like me? +**

 

"It's worth a try," he repeated.

 

**\+ If I sense hostility towards either of us from any of them... +**

 

"Sure, we can run, but you gotta at least try to trust them. I trust you, don't I?"

 

You're close enough to my central processor that you could turn me off with a thought, P-33 noted. He was about to comment on this but then it occurred to him that Kalil was still very young (in the child's own mind, at least) and might still be at the stage where he didn't know the difference between a funny prank and attempted murder, or at the very least had trouble resisting impulses, so he said nothing. Merging with his CPU when neither of them had any idea that such a thing was possible had a rather reckless feel to it. As did flying towards a large stronghold of completely unknown machines.

 

Kalil had started humming a jaunty travel song as they accelerated towards the tower.

* * *

 

 

Their travelling cloaks in tatters, the twins finally arrived at the middle of the desert. The other Popola sat under a boulder that had a curved overhang, sheltering the still form of the other Devola, who was still operational, just about, but had ceased to move. The wreckage of berserk machines, the corpses and dead code of Scrawl-infected animals were strewn around the entrance in an arc. The Twins idly wondered why they attracted so much attention from near mindless devourers. Was the rich quantity of information in their databanks like blood to a shark for them? After all, Devola mused, data was essentially what they were lacking. Half a program, eternally waiting for the correct other half to link to, when the only thing available was incompatible mess that kept violently rejecting them. A link that had forgotten about itself. Maybe it wasn't just the information they craved, Devola thought to herself. Maybe it was the fact that the Twins had each other.

 

"We don't have the strength to come back with you," said the other Popola, stroking her twin's hair and inspecting her motionless features with a frown, "Not while trying to carry her, keep her safe. I've got the exact coordinates. I can upload them onto your system now."

 

"I have more energy left over, I can lend you some for repairs..." began Popola. Her counterpart shook her head.

 

"The mission is more important. We've outlived our usefulness anyway. All of us. I don't think there are even any others in operation apart from us. We've looked everywhere..."

 

"We'll keep on looking, once we've finished the mission for you," said Devola, "Keep yourselves safe."

 

Despite the protests of the other two, Devola at least left them some repair tools she'd salvaged from the destroyed machines. Once the information had been transferred, the two of them set off again without a word.


End file.
